Ypres

The British offensive at Ypres in 1917 came to represent all the
horror and waste of the Western Front. Aiming not just to straighten out the
salient,
but to drive the Germans from Belgium, the offensive ended four months and
half a million casualties later, just a few kilometres from where it began.

Australians spearheaded five of the 11 major assaults at Ypres during September
and October: those at the Menin Road, Polygon Wood, Broodseinde Ridge, Poelcapelle
and Passchendaele. The September attacks went relatively well, but in October
the weather changed dramatically. Autumn rains turned the shell-torn ground
into a morass, in which the wounded drowned and men struggled to make any headway.
Thirty-eight thousand Australians were killed or wounded at Ypres.

Despite the difficulties of taking colour photographs in the field, Hurley
and Wilkins achieved striking success. The expressions of bewilderment and
melancholy on their subjects’ faces remain compelling almost a century
later.

I pushed on up the duck-board track to Stirling Castle – a mound of
powdered brick and from where there is to be had a magnificent panorama of
the battlefield … About here the ground had the appearance of having
been ploughed by a great canal excavator, and then reploughed and turned over
and over again … Through this the wounded had to drag themselves
and those mortally wounded pass out their young lives. Frank Hurley,
20 September 1917

Depicting a desolate scene of war, this panorama was taken just over three
hours after the opening of the battle of Menin Road on 20 September 1917.
The battlefield, dotted with damaged tanks, appears largely empty of men,
but in fact the ground teems with them, although most are hidden from view,
in trenches or shell-holes. Over 5,000 Australians were killed or wounded
here, most of them in bitter fighting around German pillboxes, including the
one known as “Stirling Castle”, from which this photograph was
taken.

This is the first time this panorama has been printed in colour. It is a
digital print, combining three individual Paget plates.

Gunner Harold Alexander Triggs about to fire No. 2 gun of the 1st Australian
Siege Battery. This 8-inch battery was positioned at Birr Crossroads in Belgium,
and on 26 September 1917 was being “ranged in” prior to the attack
on Polygon Wood two days later. Triggs was killed in action on 5 July 1918,
near Lamotte in the Nieppe Forest.

Frank Hurley
Australian working party, Voormezeele, August 1917
A group of Australian soldiers, with horses and carts, gathering materials
in the ruined Belgian village of Voormezeele. Some temporary shelters can
be seen among the ruins.
print from Paget plate
P03631.182